Egads!
I was checking out the MMSP3 chip set and it was looking kinda cool...until I hit this line...
MMSP-3 uses Optical Data Storage (Data Play)
Data Play, if it's the same Data Play who makes mini-optical storage devices, is...in theory...kinda cool.
http://www.dataplay.com/jsp_files/index.jsp
They make high density CD-like discs that hold 250MB or 500MB and is about the size of a US Quarter and the discs run for about a sawbuck each ($10 US).
Sounds cool huh?
Maybe the hardware that they're developing for Breeza will use these discs. Small fast accessing cheap to replace.
EXCEPT for one thing.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/02/08/0623216&mode=thread
I remembered an article from Februrary on SlashDot.
The long and the short of that is this...Anything you store on a DataPlay disc is subject to USES defined by creator of the data. There's a 'key' that is needed to access the Data...and this 'key' can be set to expire. Even if you copy the data from one disc to another the key will follow the data.
So only authorized players can open and view the data.
What this means, for those who haven't already caught on is...
The New Age Of Suicide Batteries Is Upon Us!
Suicide Code.
The 'protected' segments of the disc, necessary to use the data, is all dependant on the 'key' being valid.
So if we set a protected segment to not accept ANY keys after..say...4 years, then unless we have a uber-hacking scheme developed by then...your game ROM is dead, or more accurately, un-cooperative.
There's no evidence yet that the new hardaware setup will use Optical Discs, or even the Data Play discs...or even beyond THAT, that if they use the Data Play discs they would use the Content Control file structure.
But it's something to keep in mind.
[ November 19, 2001: Message edited by: Blaine ]
